According to research by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt), the fewest divorces occur in the first two years of married life, while, surprisingly, the most occur in the sixth year. Unregistered partnerships naturally fall outside this statistic, but psychologists maintain that most couples in long-term relationships are prone to family crises regardless of their official status.
Our client Inessa (name changed), who had lived in Germany for more than six years, had never formally married her life partner David (name changed). Over five years of living together, however, the couple had two children, a son Andrei and a daughter Karina. Inessa, who had received German citizenship as a late resettler, met her partner — who held a temporary residence permit — already in Germany. The first few years of living together, during which their son was born, passed relatively peacefully and smoothly for the couple, and the partners decided to have a second child. But the arrival of the second child brought not only joy but added strain, and the relationship between Inessa and David grew more tense. David began to withdraw from the family, often came home drunk, staged jealous scenes over nothing, and behaved aggressively. Constant arguments began, sometimes lasting only a few minutes but leaving an unpleasant aftertaste for a long time.
Around this same time, David lost his steady income, so Inessa decided to pursue specialized training in order to be able to find work later on. The partners therefore agreed that David would stay with the children on the days Inessa attended her course. It turned out, however, that David had no idea how to manage the children, what to feed them, what their daily routine was, or any of the other details, since Inessa had always handled these matters alone. Having spent just three days with the children and realized how demanding it was, our client's partner flatly refused to keep staying with them, so Inessa had to drop her training and once again take on the family's needs alone.
Tensions in the family kept escalating. At one point, a woman contacted our client and told her she was in a romantic relationship with David. Shortly afterward, our client's partner left the family. For some time after that, Inessa and David remained in fairly close contact and discussed ways to resolve their family problems; our client even suggested getting back together, but the relationship could not be restored.
Inessa's former partner visited the children fairly often at first, but then less and less frequently. He often promised his older son that he would spend a day with him, take him to the park, or buy him some present, but then forgot, or stopped by for only a few minutes, or did not come at all. This upset Andrei greatly, and when David disappeared for almost a year, Inessa concluded that such contact with the father would only harm the children and told him he was no longer to call or come by.
David was furious at this and tried to get in touch with Inessa, to pressure her, to make her change her decision. However difficult it was for our client, she decided to stand firm for the children's sake.
For this reason, Inessa's former partner resorted to drastic measures: he consulted a lawyer to file an application for a court-ordered arrangement of his right of contact (Umgangsrecht) with the children. In the application, David claimed that our client was denying him contact with the children solely because he had not wanted to continue their romantic relationship. According to Inessa's former partner, he and Inessa held joint custody of both children, and he had, even after the relationship ended, regularly visited his children until Inessa forbade the visits. On this basis, David's representative asked the court to grant the father practically unlimited access to the children, including overnight stays with the father on weekends, evening visits during the week, and an extended stay with the father during Andrei's summer holidays.
Upon receiving a copy of this application together with the summons to the court hearing, Inessa immediately decided to turn to our law firm, since her former partner's strange and often even aggressive behavior frightened our client greatly; she was therefore firmly unwilling to hand the children over to him, especially for overnight stays or for extended periods.
In order to prepare a well-founded response to David's claims, our lawyer asked Inessa to describe David's attitude toward the children, and her own relationship with her former partner, in as much detail as possible. It turned out that our client's fears were indeed well founded, and the lawyer, having gathered the necessary information, set about building Inessa's legal position, which was then set out in a written submission and filed with the relevant court.
In that submission, our lawyer first drew the court's attention to the fact that joint custody had been established only in respect of Andrei; for Karina, our client held sole custody.
Furthermore, the claim that David had regularly visited his children after separating from Inessa did not reflect the truth. According to the information provided by our client, her former partner had not visited his children even once in the previous year, and had visited them only a couple of times in the current year, with Inessa forming the impression that David did so only when he needed something from our client (for instance, to obtain documents required to extend his residence permit, since that permit was in fact extended precisely on the basis of David and Inessa's joint custody of Andrei). David had never arranged any active leisure time with the children and had never expressed a wish to see them more often or take them home with him overnight.
The lawyer also informed the court that Inessa's reason for forbidding David to see the children was not revenge for his unwillingness to resume their relationship, but solely a wish to protect the children from the constant stress caused by their father's failure to keep even his smallest promises.
The lawyer paid particular attention to the fact that meetings between the father and the children at Inessa's home were unacceptable to our client, since in the last months of their life together David had become very aggressive, constantly provoked conflicts, had struck our client on a couple of occasions, and had even come at her with a knife. Moreover, even after David left the family, he kept trying to pick fights with Inessa, frequently calling while drunk, especially at night, and on one occasion, after Inessa refused to speak with him, sent her a message saying that if she did not pick up he would kill them — a claim backed up by the corresponding call and message logs. This behavior by her former partner left our client fearful.
The lawyer also noted that Inessa objected to meetings between the father and the children at his home, since David had for over a year been living with a woman who had personally told our client that she suffered from a mental illness, experienced frequent bouts of depression, and during those episodes cut her own arms. Our client's former partner had himself confirmed this information, and on one occasion had simply sent an email with a photograph of his girlfriend's bloodied, self-inflicted cuts, without any comment. Accordingly, the children's presence at David's home, especially overnight, seemed to Inessa undesirable and even dangerous for them.
Our lawyer further emphasized that David could not claim an extended stay by the children at his home, since he had proven unable to look after the children even for a few days when Inessa was attending her training course, and had personally refused to stay alone with them, forcing Inessa to drop her studies in order to look after Andrei and Karina permanently.
On the basis of these facts, the lawyer concluded that, owing to David's psychological instability — reflected in his aggressive behavior toward Inessa, which also frightened the children — his former partner's demonstrated inability to look after the children, and Andrei's growing distrust of a father who consistently failed to keep his promises, meetings between David and the children could not take place without appropriate supervision by a qualified professional.
During the hearing, the court heard the arguments of both parties, but, taking into account the facts brought before it by our lawyer, ruled in our client's favor, ordering that for the first six months, meetings between the father and the children could take place only in the presence of a qualified psychologist. The parties also agreed that Andrei and Karina's parents would themselves take part in sessions with the psychologist in order to build mutual understanding.
David, who also accepted the court's decision, began to visit the children regularly and communicate with Inessa. Thanks to the psychologist's involvement — who heard out each party and proposed the solutions most acceptable to all concerned for each particular issue — all the rough edges stemming from old grievances and misunderstandings were gradually smoothed over. After just a few such visits, Andrei, who had initially reacted very negatively to the prospect of his father visiting and then letting him down again, began once more to respond joyfully to meetings with David, and our client and her former partner stopped quarreling.
Once the six months of sessions with the psychotherapist and supervised meetings with the children ordered by the court had elapsed, Inessa and David informed the court that they were ready to resume their family relationship. The psychotherapist submitted a report on all the sessions that had taken place and on the genuine progress made both in the father's relationship with the children and between the parents themselves.
In this case, further judicial intervention was no longer necessary, the proceedings were closed, and Inessa and David, continuing their sessions with the psychologist, returned to a calm and harmonious family life.
From our firm's practice
Our client Inessa (name changed), who had lived in Germany for more than six years, had never formally married her life partner David (name changed).
This example from our law firm's practice thus illustrates that certain situations can lead the parties into a deadlock that cannot be resolved without the intervention of a third party. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you consult a qualified lawyer, who can advise you on the solutions best suited to your situation and help you implement them without unnecessary cost or effort.
All rights reserved. Copying or republishing this article requires a link to the original source.
